Cloud transformation for a Top10 global retailer

The challenge

Our client, one of the biggest global retailers, aimed to increase the efficiency of their cloud platform. To achieve that, they could either modernize their existing solution or switch to Microsoft Azure.

The client wanted to avoid supporting a cloud platform run by their competition and chose to carry out a cloud transformation. They needed a technological partner who would guide them through the process, as the client’s engineers lacked experience in similar undertakings, as well as expertise in Microsoft’s Azure.

The client chose VirtusLab, as our engineers, on top of being proficient with Microsoft’s Azure, already proved their proficiency in cloud technologies. The client was impressed with our previous work, including implementing a cloud-native approach for one of their projects.

The solution

VirtusLab helped the client carry out their cloud transformation at both technological and organizational levels. Here’s what we did:

Technological transformation

VirtusLab introduced the client to the tools for IaaC (Infrastructure as Code) and conducted a migration of data.

Our engineers also migrated dozens of business-critical applications from AWS to Azure, while maintaining system availability – even in peak traffic periods such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Most importantly, they integrated Microsoft Azure within the client’s organization. The new platform included:

• The automated onboarding process.
• Preconfigured environments.
• Security policies.
• Network connectivity to the data center.
• Monitoring standards consistent with the client’s policies.

Our engineers also helped the client restructure the entire ecosystem of cloud-native and agile practices within the organization. This included setting up the infrastructure, processes, and tooling for almost 200 development teams and around 2,000 engineers. 

Organizational transformation

We also:

• Created a baseline for the client’s new infrastructure and set up a gold standard.
• Helped in implementing our client’s cloud strategy. 
• Planned gradual onboarding with various tools and technologies used by teams.
• Introduced self-service tools and democratization of tooling within the organization.
• Helped define ownership and responsibility models.
• Created new security, compliance, and data protection policies.
• Co-created incident and change management processes.
• Increased adoption of cloud-native technologies and built a community around it.

The results

VirtusLab helped our client design and migrate many systems, resulting in faster delivery and better quality in the cloud infrastructure area. With the cloud transformation complete and Microsoft’s Azure fully set the client noticed:

• Faster time to market. For a typical project, the time-to-market was cut by at least 10 man-weeks. 
• Reduced developer friction with security thanks to secured and fully operational Kubernetes environments.
• Reduced duplication of effort across dozens of development teams, as a result of standardization of the infrastructure as Code approach within an organization.